The Life and Lies of Severus Snape
by Giant Squuidy
Summary: Snape had no idea when Lily became a game in which they were all competing for. He only knew that he had never been any good at games. Told through snippets of Snape's life. Bit of SnapeLily, RemusLily, JamesLily.


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**So, I'm pretty much in love with Snape's story, and after I read The Prince's Tale I couldn't stop forming plots in my mind.**

**So here goes, my first fic in quite awhile. I actually spent a lot of time and slaved over this. And I really love it.**

**I love sentence fragments too.**

**And I don't own anything. Some of the quotes are directly taken from the books too. I'm a cheater.**

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**The Life and Lies of Severus Snape**

"I think I made a new friend" the first year said conversationally, picking through the grass beside her.  
"Why do you need new friends?" he replied darkly, casting his eyes over her light figure.  
"Because, Sev, you're in a different house and not in all of my classes." She explained, tugging on yet another blade, "I don't like sitting by myself."  
"I sit by myself" he retorted, growing restless.  
"But you don't have to." She said, frustrated.  
"You're my best friend."  
She sighed dramatically, brushing the pieces of ground off her skirt, "His name is Remus Lupin."  
Severus stood up suddenly and reached down for his satchel, "I don't like him, Lily."  
With a pained expression, she looked up at him, "You don't like anyone."  
"I like you."

-----

"I passed my Defense Against the Dark Arts exam!" the third year squealed as she hurled herself into the arms of the waiting boy.  
"I knew you would." He said confidently, placing her back on her feet.  
She brushed a section of hair that had fallen loose in the embrace behind her ear, "I never would have without Remus' help.  
His hands fell from her shoulders, "What?"  
"I mentioned that I was struggling, and he offered to help me." She replied cautiously, through a furrowed brow. "It was really nice of him."  
"I could have helped you."  
"I know… but—"  
"It's not my best subject or anything."  
"Severus—"  
"And I'm not your best friend, of course."  
"I didn't mean anything by it!" she huffed, crossing her arms across her chest. "He offered, and you weren't around. It was nice of him."  
"If I'd known, Lily, I would have been around."  
"It was nice of him." She repeated meekly, staring at the cobblestone ground.

-----

"He loves you" he said, leafing through his school book. "What?" she said, caught off guard by the statement.  
"He loves you." He repeated, still without emotion.  
"Who?" she scoffed.  
"Remus Lupin."  
"How can you tell?" she asked, shadowing her face.  
"By the way he looks at you" he said, as it was the most obvious thing in the world.  
"How does he look at me?"  
"Like he loves you."  
She glanced towards him with a confused expression, "And how would you know how someone looks at someone when they love them?"  
He switched his gaze from the ground to her face, "Why wouldn't I know?"

-----

He watched them walk towards him with as much loathing as he thought was possible to feel.  
"Where were you?" he snarled, stepping out of the shadow he'd been concealed in.  
"Severus!" Lily exclaimed, jumping back, "What are you talking about?"  
"Where were you?" he asked again, furrowing his brows even more.  
"Where was I supposed to be?" she retorted, growing angry.  
He scoffed, "It's Tuesday. We always meet for dinner on Tuesdays."She stared at the boy, "We meet for dinner everyday. Why are Tuesday's any different?"  
"Because Tuesday's the day you decided to run off with him" he sneered, gesturing to the boy who stood awkwardly beside Lily.  
"Maybe I should go?" Remus offered, quietly to Lily as if Snape wasn't there.  
"Maybe we should both go." She finalized, grabbing Remus' hand and continuing down the empty corridor.

-----

He was dangling by his ankle, upside down, and in front of his entire fifth year. The blood was rushing to his head. He wasn't thinking properly.  
"LEAVE HIM ALONE!" she shouted, and he knew she was his best friend.  
In a heap he fell to the ground, entwined in his own limbs with a hot temper.  
"There you go" the arrogant Potter boy said proudly, "you're lucky Evans was here, Snivellus-"  
He hated him, and would do anything to prove he would not be so easily beaten. "I don't need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!"  
He struggled to stand, not comprehending his words and eager to thank Lily secretly.  
"Fine," he heard her say as he patted the dirt off his robes, "I won't bother in the future. And I'd wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus."  
This he comprehended.

-----

"LILY," he shouted down the halls at her retreating figure. "LILY!"  
"WHAT?" she turned sharply, not hiding her tear stained face, "WHAT could you possible want?"  
He suddenly forgot what it was he could possibly want and shuffled towards her, "I'm sorry", he muttered.  
"Did Potter threaten you? Did he make you say that?", she spat, her green eyes gleaming with tears. "I can't see what other explanation there is. After all, why would you apologize to a filthy little Mudblood like me?"  
And she was gone again, and the boy didn't know what to do.

-----

She rushed towards him from across the room, and for a moment he thought things would get better. Then he saw the hatred that still lingered in her eyes. He wanted to turn and run in the opposite direction, but he knew that wouldn't help.  
"What did you do to him?" she demanded angrily.  
"Who?" he asked, gathering his items together for a quick exit.  
"The person who you did it too!" Lily glared.  
"I'd know whom you were talking about if you told me what I supposedly did to them" he reasoned.  
She sniffed indignantly, "Why isn't Remus talking to me. Why won't he even look at me? What did you do to him?"  
He almost wished he could take credit, and steal her back, "Nothing."  
"I don't believe you!" she whispered hysterically, ignoring the glances of others.  
"I'm sorry" he tried, hoping somehow, it would fix something.  
It was supposed to fix something.

-----

"Is she not good enough for you?" he hissed across his cauldron in Potions class at the boy opposite him.  
Remus looked up from his own simmering cauldron, "Yes, Severus?"  
"Why won't you talk to Lily" he asked, making sure the girl in question was out of earshot.  
"What?" he said, trying to concentrate on his potion.  
"She's too good for you." Snape quipped, stirring his own concoction.  
Remus didn't look up, "I know."  
"What?"  
"I should have helped you. I should have stopped James. Lily's too good for me."  
"Well" Severus said, lowering his head out of guilt at the turn around of the conversation, "It's hard to be good enough. Lily's perfect"  
Remus swallowed hard, "I guess that's what James figured."  
"James?"  
"He loves her."  
"He loves every girl," Snape said confidently, "I've seen him."  
"This one is different. I can tell by the way he looks at her."

-----

He wanted to ask her why. He wanted to take her shoulders in his pale hands and shake her. Shake the reasons out of her. Shake the sane thoughts back into her head.  
He wanted to know how she could walk down the halls so casually, his fingers interlaced with hers. His fingers. The fingers she would have hexed off, had she the chance, a few months previously.  
When they passed in the corridors, nothing more than acquaintances, he tried to ask her. He would send her an obviously questioned look, and she would only smile in response.  
As if a smile was the answer to everything.

-----

He thought it was cold enough on the grounds. No one in their right mind would be out, so no one would notice the boy sitting there as the snow fell around him. He liked the snow. It reflected how he left.  
Lily always liked the snow too. It reflected the world.  
He heard her bright laughter before he saw her. She was running down the hill, her hands clutching at the collar of her jacket, jovial. He wanted to stand up and catch her before she lost control and tumbled into the snow, but someone got there first.  
Obviously James Potter liked snow too.  
Luckily, they were much too in love to notice the boy sitting there alone as the snow fell around him, in the exact same spot he sat several years earlier, discussing how reflective snow was with an optimistic young girl.  
And he had already thought it was cold enough on the grounds.

-----

Graduation was meant to be a celebratory time. A time to look back on all of the years and smile.  
He didn't smile, but Lily was. She was standing proud, her arm linked with Potter's, laughing at something, probably idiotic, that Black had just said.  
He had no idea why he approached them, only to tap meekly on Lily's shoulder and ask if they could talk. She looked up to Potter, as if she needed permission, before nodding and reclaiming her arm.  
"Yes?" she asked, not allowing him the pleasure of eye contact.  
"I'm sorry," he said, trying to ignore the possessive staring of James.  
She scuffed her heels against the ground, "I know."  
"Good."  
"And I'm sorry things had to end this way." She finished, before giving him once last painful glance and hurrying off to rejoin her group.  
If she was really sorry, he thought, she wouldn't have accepted the proposal Potter offered her that night.

-----

It came by owl one afternoon, dressed in elaborate emerald trim. He was naturally curious, until he glanced at the front.  
"Announcing the engagement of James Potter and Lily Evans"  
And he thought that this was the end. The long, unnecessarily, drawn out end.

-----

Another letter followed soon after, very similarly decorated, inviting him to the wedding. RSVP, the invitation said.  
He knew this was Lily's doing. James would never have a slime ball like him at his wedding.  
RVSP, the invitation mocked.

-----

He chose a seat in the back, away from the joyous crowd hugging and sharing tears. It was a time to celebrate, and he would let them. He glanced only once at James, standing proudly and anxiously at the alter, with Sirius by his side. Of course he won. Severus never stood a chance.  
He knew she wouldn't notice him, a skulking figure in the corner. Her vibrant eyes were focused only on James, in any matter.  
It was killing him.  
She finished her walk, and Remus passed her over, receiving a delicate kiss on the cheek as thanks, and Snape knew it was killing him just as much.

-----

"How did you do it?" he asked quietly over the excitement after the ceremony.  
"Do what?", Remus asked, standing with his back against the wall, watching the merriment with his pained expression masked.  
"Walk her down the aisle. You loved her."  
"Exactly."

-----

They all say if you love someone enough, you only really want to see them happy, but he disagreed. He believed that if you love someone enough, you'll only really be happy if they're happy. Happy with you.  
Because he certainly wasn't happy when he thought about her and her new life in his lonely flat.  
She haunted him, everywhere he went. When he slept, he remembered the innocent nights they spent together as children. Then his mind would wander to the not-so-innocent nights she was probably spending with her new husband. As he washed dishes by himself after his meal for one, he formed images in his mind of the lovely couple doing their chores together. Perhaps they'd be humming. Perhaps they'd take a break to show their affection to one another through soft kisses.  
The thoughts alone made him throw his cutlery against the wall in spite  
No. He wasn't happy. He was bitter.

-----

He didn't enjoy their company. He never did. Even back at school.  
Maybe it was her fault he was here. It was her fault that he had to seek out this companionship.  
But he knew that he couldn't blame her for this. He couldn't blame her for looking for something better. Something better than the pale and greasy boy who held too deep an interest in dark magic.  
And she did look for something more, but he couldn't blame her.  
But he certainly could blame James Potter, maybe even the innocent child that happened to be the center of that night's meeting.

-----

Desperation brought him to the hilltop. Desperation and an extreme feeling of pain. More pain than he had ever felt. The old wizard interrogated him heavily, as he should, trying to get to the real meaning of the impromptu arrangement.  
"The prophecy" Snape heaved, "He thinks it means Lily!"  
That boy. That boy was the root of the problems, and that boy found it's way into the conversation.  
"You disgust me" the man spat with contempt, "You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?"  
And for the first moment, Severus thought he truly understood love. He forgot about his selfish want, and he thought only of Lily. His Lily. His love.  
"Hide them all. Keep her---them--- safe. Please"  
And thus he wished away his last connection to the world that tore them apart. He immersed himself in the newly discovered emotion.  
He would drown in that newly discovered emotion.

-----

He was supposed to protect her. He promised he would protect her. And he didn't.  
She was gone. He had done his part. He pleaded with the Dark Lord. He pleaded with Dumbledore. He had assurance on both sides. Neither did their part.  
The boy. That dratted boy survived. He had been told she had given her life for that boy. He had also been told that Potter had given his life for both of them.  
Maybe he was not always the prick Severus assumed him to be.  
Love. It was something he was still struggling to understand.  
And still Dumbledore felt as though he could manipulate his feelings.  
"Protect the boy" he told him, as if it was the only path forward.  
And he knew that he was right. He hated that he was right.

-----

It had been years. 11 years. He had finally come to terms with it.  
Lily Evans was dead.  
And then that boy decided to waltz into the school and turn his sanity upside down. He hated the boy. Hated him more than he ever hated Potter back in his own school days. This boy, Harry, was the result of a love that never should have been. It wouldn't have been, if Snape had only kept his tongue.  
He never meant to make his life miserable, but it was the only way that he could make it through the day. Concentrating on that black hair made it easier. Then he could forget that Lily even existed.  
But if he should ever get a glance of those eyes, he knew his carefully constructed plan would be lost. Dumbledore was right. The boy had Lily's eyes exactly. Eyes that would quickly spurn Snape into a whirlpool of painful memories and questions of what could have been.  
And it was his job to keep those eyes glowing with life.

-----

This was the end. The end he had wished for for so long. Finally. No more spying. No more secrets. No more pain.  
Snape lay withering on the floor of the Shrieking Shack, clutching at the wound on his neck. He wished to see no more. He wished to feel no more.  
But that boy had to come and make the dying process more difficult. Snape knew what the boy had to do. Knew it would be harder than anything he himself had to go through. And he knew that he wouldn't need his memories any longer.  
And the boy had to learn. He had to understand.  
"Look at me"  
He had to understand love.

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**Review and stuff!**

**Plus there was an indenting issue that I just gave up on. Anyone know how to fix?**

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